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Iain MacIntyre: Another day, another 5 picks, as Canucks change on the fly

Thatcher Demko of the Vancouver Canucks meets with team President Trevor Linden after being drafted on Day Two of the 2014 NHL Draft at the Wells Fargo Center on June 28, 2014 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Photograph by: Bruce Bennett
, Getty Images

PHILADELPHIA – The week that reshaped the Vancouver Canucks ended with the second day of the entry draft here as the National Hockey League team traded for former junior scoring star Linden Vey and selected five more prospects, including a goalie from Boston College who topped the netminder rankings.

With Friday’s thunderous trade of Ryan Kesler to the Anaheim Ducks still echoing, the Canucks made a little more noise Saturday morning. They acquired Vey, the former Medicine Hat junior star who knows Vancouver coach Willie Desjardins, from the Los Angeles Kings for the second-round draft pick the Canucks obtained Friday by trading defenceman Jason Garrison to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Canucks used their own second-round pick, 36th overall, to draft Thatcher Demko, the 18-year-old from San Diego who topped NHL Central Scouting’s goalie rankings and could be Team USA’s starter at the next world junior championship. Demko attends Boston College, just as former Canuck starter Cory Schneider did after Vancouver drafted him a decade ago.

“When I think about my first day, I walked into that office office and thought: Where do I start?” Canuck president of hockey operations Trevor Linden, hired in April when general manager Mike Gillis was fired, said after his first draft in management. “Each day you kind of put one piece together and identify the direction you want to go.

“I’m thrilled the way we’ve been able to move forward the way we have, especially this week. Hiring a coach, dealing with a difficult situation (Kesler’s trade demand), bringing in players who are excited to be in Vancouver and what that brings to the team, bringing in a new crop of kids like Jake Virtanen and Jared McCann and Thatcher Demko, it’s just all really positive. Really positive.”

The Canucks drafted Abbotsford winger Virtanen with the sixth pick of the first round Friday night, then chose Ontario League two-way centre McCann with the 24th pick acquired from Anaheim in the Kesler deal.

It was the second straight draft the Canucks picked twice in the first round; they selected high-scoring forwards Bo Horvat and Hunter Shinkaruk last June.

Adding an elite goaltending prospect like Demko, then in the fourth round choosing six-foot-seven Russian defenceman Nikita Tryamkin, the Canucks have fully refilled their talent pipeline.

Tryamkin has two years remaining on his Kontinental Hockey League contract with Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg.

Demko has been diagnosed with hip problems that could require non-career-threatening surgery. That complication probably caused him to slip from the first round to the second, but he had an outstanding freshman season at Boston College and will play next season before re-visiting his hip issue.

“That could scare some teams, but I made sure they knew the whole story,” Demko told reporters. “They had the medical report. They knew what to expect. I don’t think it was too much of an issue.

“Some guys are saying you might as well get it done now. But if I’d got it done now, I would have missed the first two or three months of the season, and I don’t want to miss any playing time. So I opted out of it and. . . next year we’ll re-evaluate it and see what happens. It’s not like a horrible pain, it’s just stiffness. It’s something I can definitely deal with. The surgeon actually said you can play with it 15 or 20 years as long as you can manage the pain.”

Demko posted a 2.24 goals-against average and .919 save rate in 24 games this season as a freshman at Boston, taking over the starting job and taking the Eagles to the Frozen Four of U.S. college hockey before losing in the semi-finals. He played for Team USA at the Under-18 and Under-17 levels and is a candidate to start their world junior team.

“Honestly, I have such high expectations for myself. I expected to be the No. 1 guy and I expect to win games and have success. We didn’t win, so for me, it’s not a success. A bunch of people are saying I had a good year. It’s a good starting point for me, but I definitely expect to be better next year.”

The Canucks are the same way.

With their fifth-round pick, the team selected Swedish defenceman Gustav Forsling, whom scout Thomas Gradin describes as a “left-side Sami Salo” for his cannon shot. Vancouver chose 6-4 OHL centre Kyle Pettit in the sixth round and went for size again in the seventh, drafting 6-5 Prince Albert defenceman Mackenzie Stewart.

“Now we just have to make things happen next fall,” Linden said. “But I feel a lot better about that than I did a month ago.”

Thatcher Demko of the Vancouver Canucks meets with team President Trevor Linden after being drafted on Day Two of the 2014 NHL Draft at the Wells Fargo Center on June 28, 2014 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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